Domestic fabless semiconductor companies are making strides in overseas markets, including the United States. Fabless refers to a business model that focuses on semiconductor research and development (R&D) while outsourcing production. NVIDIA, a U.S. company that dominates the global artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductor market, is a prime example.
According to industry sources on the 7th, Asicland recently signed a supply contract with PHYTunes in the United States for multi-band radio frequency integrated circuits (RFICs) used in wireless communication. This is Asicland’s first entry into the U.S. market. PHYTunes is a strong player in the Indoor Connectivity sector.
Wireless communication typically requires three semiconductors: RFIC, baseband, and processor. Among these, the RFIC that Asicland will supply to PHYTunes removes noise from signals received through the antenna, amplifies weak signals, and sends them to the baseband.
An Asicland representative said, “Entering the U.S. market, which accounts for about 70% of the global fabless market, will be an important opportunity to accelerate business expansion in overseas markets, including North America. We will strengthen our position in the global market and seek growth in various industry sectors.”
Meanwhile, Sapien Semiconductor signed a development contract for complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) backplanes with a global micro-LED display engine company. Sapien Semiconductor specializes in micro-LED pixel array drive chips and holds over 150 patents domestically and internationally.
The CMOS backplane is a semiconductor technology specialized for micro-LED display engines used in wearable devices like smart glasses. Sapien Semiconductor plans to supply application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) samples in the first half of next year and start the mass production of related products in the second half.
A representative from Sapien Semiconductor said, “As the demand for micro-LEDs grows mainly for augmented reality (AR) devices, the CMOS backplane that is used is also gaining attention. The products developed through this contract will not only be actively exported domestically but also to various overseas markets, including China and the United States.”
There are also cases of strengthening local corporate investment for overseas market entry. Fadu recently decided to invest an additional $4.56 million in its U.S. subsidiary, IEUM. This investment will help accelerate IEUM’s ongoing Compute Express Link (CXL) semiconductor project.
IEUM, a subsidiary established by Fadu in Silicon Valley last year, produces CXL-based semiconductor products such as the CXL switch. CXL is a next-generation standard technology for the quick and efficient transfer of data between various parts of a data center.
A representative from Fadu stated, “The CXL switch is a core semiconductor that connects various semiconductors in a data center, such as graphics processing units (GPUs), neural network processors (NPUs), and high-bandwidth memory (HBM). We plan to lead the data center semiconductor market by making the CXL switch our next-generation flagship product.”
An industry official said, “Domestic fabless companies, which used to be relatively small, have recently established a certain foundation in the domestic market. They are continuously achieving successful results in major overseas markets, including the United States.”
